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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23293618">then, everything changed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theOestofOCs/pseuds/theOestofOCs'>theOestofOCs</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Found Family, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Trauma, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), oh friends this is hurt/comfort in its purest form, zuko deserves all the love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:29:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23293618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theOestofOCs/pseuds/theOestofOCs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko shot upright, gasping and bringing his hands up defensively. “No, please,” he begged, clearly still half-asleep. One hand came up to touch his… his scar, Sokka realized, with a sinking feeling. Zuko flinched when his fingers brushed burned skin.</p><p>*</p><p>Sometimes Zuko still has nightmares.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka &amp; Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong &amp; Sokka &amp; Zuko, Toph Beifong &amp; Zuko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Quality Fics, avatar tingz</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>then, everything changed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Do I have other things I can and should be writing? Absolutely. Am I, instead, showing up in this fandom fifteen years late, drenched in mud and without coffee? Also yes.</p><p>Look, it's quarantine, we're all in weird places, and I for one cannot be cooped up in a house full of baggage and <em>not</em> project all the things onto Zuko. That's just too much to ask.</p><p>Written for a prompt by the wonderful @lunarmultishine on tumblr, check endnotes for details :)</p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zuko had always tried so hard.</p><p>He wasn’t like Azula; he didn’t—he didn’t <em>get</em> people, never caught the secrets in their small expressions, he couldn’t tell when they were being sarcastic (“calm down, Zuzu, it was just a joke”). He stood too stiffly and didn’t fit in and “you’ll get better at these things when you get older,” Mom said, but he <em>didn’t </em>and—and he <em>didn’t know what Dad wanted.</em></p><p>He tried <em>so</em> hard.</p><p>(he tried so hard, but it was never good enough. he was a failure. a disappointment. disrespectful. dishonorable. his father was right to banish him)</p><p>(his father was right)</p><p>(his father was always right)</p><p>(wasn’t he?)</p><p>((no))</p><p>Zuko still dreamt of that day.</p><p>He hadn’t, at first. When he’d just gotten command of his ship, for a full month after—after, he didn’t dream at all. Or if he did, it was just little things; ordinary ones, about Uncle playing a nonsense game of pai sho, or the Earth King coming to dinner. Oh, he thought about <em>it</em> often enough. Between the monotonous changing of bandages, and the throbbing burning pain where his eye had been (was his eye still there? Zuko couldn’t bring himself to check, in those early days), and the constant sway-sway-swaying of the ship (he was <em>banished,</em> and the floor beneath him was determined not to let him forget), Zuko spent every waking thought berating himself. How could he let this happen? How could he disappoint his father so thoroughly, so finally?</p><p>“I believe you have healed enough to take off your bandages,” Uncle finally said. “However, you must be careful not to aggravate your injury further, Prince Zuko.”</p><p>“Yes, Uncle,” Zuko replied. </p><p>He looked in a mirror as soon as Uncle left, for the first time since his banishment. He stared until tears blurred his vision (blurred his right eye; his left eye was <em>there </em>but barely and it couldn’t see anything clearly so what did it matter if tears gathered in its ruined slit), and then a tear <em>fell,</em> he saw it slip down what was left of his cheek—</p><p>He used the shards of the mirror to shave his head.</p><p>He had no honor. (sway, sway, swaying beneath his feet) Only the last thin hope of regaining it, as slim a chance as he deserved, but he would redeem himself. He left the phoenix tail, tying it up with a spare roll of white cotton. He <em>would</em> get his honor back. He would find the Avatar, he would—he would make up for his disrespect—</p><p>(he just wanted to go <em>home</em>)</p><p>he would make his father love him again.</p><p>That was when the nightmares started.</p><p>(they never ended. sway, sway, sway, and he never woke up)</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>* * *</p>
</div>Look. Sokka hadn’t signed up for this. Was it his fault he had a weirdo waterbending sister who broke the Tui-cursed Avatar out of his ice cube? No. It wasn’t his idea to go traipsing all over the four nations to beat the Fire Lord, it’d just kind of <em>happened.</em><p>And now here he was, hunching into his sleeping roll in a Fire Nation cave and trying to ignore the gloomy Fire Nation prince who seemed to be having a lovely little nightmare in the corner.</p><p>How was this his life? </p><p>With a quiet groan, he gave up on plugging his ears under his blanket and just stared blankly at the rocks above him. Had he offended a spirit in a previous incarnation? Was this his punishment?</p><p>For a fleeting moment, things quieted down, and he dared to hope that Zuko would chill out on his own. That was probably the last straw. He should really know better than to hope for things like that; it made it too easy for whatever supernatural forces were conspiring to torment him.</p><p>Instead, the little pained noises turned into a high, quiet whine that was just painful to hear. Spirits, that wasn’t playing fair. Zuko was the bad guy, he shouldn’t be allowed to make sounds like that.</p><p>Sighing, Sokka kicked his way out of his sleeping roll and started over. To his surprise, Toph was already there. </p><p>Okay, cool, so this was taken care of, maybe he could just scoot right back to his bed without them noticing—</p><p>“Get over here, you blockhead,” Toph hissed.</p><p>Right. Blind. Foot-bending, all-knowing badger-mole girl. Sokka sighed again and sidled over.</p><p>“I’ve been trying to wake him for the past minute while you were dithering in your sleeping bag,” Toph grumbled, “but no dice. I don’t know how to get him up without scaring him more.” </p><p>“And, what, you haven’t tried just slapping him awake?” Sokka asked. She grabbed his hand before he could raise it, gripping it tightly enough to hurt.</p><p>“No, Snoozles,” Toph snapped. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not all ‘hit first, ask questions later.’ And…his heart rate is really high. I don’t wanna make it worse.”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Sokka said, finally managing to snatch his hand back. He examined it quickly to make sure nothing was broken—what? the kid was stronger than she looked—before turning his attention back to Zuko. He’d quieted down for the past few seconds, but as soon as Sokka saw his face it was pretty obvious that wasn’t a good thing. It didn’t exactly look like he was having fun. Wait, was Zuko <em>crying?</em></p><p>“Zuko,” he said softly. Tentatively he reached forward, extending his finger to poke Zuko’s temple.</p><p>The result was instantaneous. Zuko shot upright, gasping and bringing his hands up defensively. “No, please,” he begged, clearly still half-asleep.</p><p>“Hey, it’s okay,” Sokka scrambled back, because Zuko had that look like he might firebend at anything that moved too close. Toph did the same, he saw. “It’s just us, Toph and Sokka, you’re here to help train the Avatar, remember?”</p><p>“Wh…” Zuko was breathing hard, like he’d just run a marathon. One hand came up to touch his… his scar, Sokka realized, with a sinking feeling. Zuko flinched when his fingers brushed burned skin.</p><p>“Hey, Sparky,” Toph said quietly. She waited until Zuko’s gaze had flickered to her, away, back again. “You with us?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Zuko rasped. He was still way too pale. “Yeah, I—sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?”</p><p>“Nope,” Toph reassured him. “Neither of us were asleep yet.”</p><p>“Good,” Zuko nodded, short and rapid like a startled bird. “That’s good. Sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be sorry, bud,” Sokka said without thinking. He hesitated, then shimmied back over to sit next to Zuko. “It’s not like you could help it.”</p><p>Zuko was quiet for a beat too long. “Right. No. I couldn’t… I couldn’t have helped it.”</p><p>“Do you wanna talk about it?” Toph asked gently. Sokka glanced over and saw she’d taken Zuko’s hand.</p><p>“I—” Zuko swallowed. “I don’t know. Yes. No.” He growled in frustration. “I don’t know what I want.”</p><p>“That’s okay,” Toph said easily. “We can wait.”</p><p>Sokka nodded, though he wasn’t sure Zuko saw. He was sitting on Zuko’s left side. “Take your time,” he added, just in case.</p><p>Zuko did. It must’ve been almost half an hour later that he spoke, and Sokka had almost fallen asleep at that point. </p><p>“It was my father.”</p><p>“Your scar?” Toph murmured, and Sokka wondered who’d told her about it.</p><p>Zuko nodded. It was harder to see him now; the moon had shifted, from shining almost full into the cave to somewhere further overhead, and now he was barely more than a silhouette beside Sokka. </p><p>“I wanted,” Zuko started, and spirits but he sounded so <em>lost,</em> “I don’t know what I wanted, anymore. I thought I wanted honor. Now I think I just wanted his love. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I asked Uncle to let me join in on the war council, because I thought it would help me learn to govern well, and I promised him, I <em>promised</em> not to speak. But then the general said he wanted to use an entire battalion of new recruits as bait, and I—I was such an idiot. I actually stood up and shouted at him, in front of my father and everyone, and I’d broken my word to Uncle and disrespected the Fire Lord and all his advisors. It was foolish and hot-headed and I deserved to be punished.” </p><p>The silence stretched, and then Zuko shook his head. “But not like that,” he whispered in the darkness.</p><p>Softly, Toph prodded, “Like what?” </p><p>“Agni Kai,” Zuko blurted, like it burned to say the words. “He challenged me to an Agni Kai. It’s—it’s a Fire Nation tradition, I guess. A way to resolve conflict. I thought when I accepted that I’d be fighting the general I’d interrupted, but I was wrong. It was him.”</p><p>Sokka sucked in a breath, trying to keep quiet. This was… it was a lot.</p><p>“I think he might have been looking for a way to kill me, actually,” Zuko added reflectively, and <em>now</em> Sokka felt like he’d been punched in the gut, “but when I realized it was him I refused to fight. Told myself I was a coward for so many years after that, but now I realize that attempt at respect is probably the only reason I’m still alive. It would be hard for even the Fire Lord to claim he’d accidentally killed his son in an honorable duel, when his son refused to fight him.”</p><p>“Zuko,” Sokka whispered breathlessly.</p><p>“So instead he just burned me,” Zuko continued, relentless now. A dam had broken, and now he couldn’t stop. “There were all those witnesses, so he couldn’t kill me, and he was so angry, and I don’t know why he hated me but I’m sure now that he did. And he grabbed my chin in one hand and my left eye in the other, and held me still while he branded my face. And I screamed and screamed and he didn’t <em>stop,</em> and nobody stopped him, and I dream about it over and over and over and then I wake up and it <em>still happened.</em>”</p><p>Sokka felt sick. </p><p>“And now I’m marked forever as a traitor, without honor, and that is never going to go away and it will never change. I thought I could change it by finding the Avatar and bringing him home, I thought that for so long,” Zuko’s voice was shaking and hitching now, Sokka thought he was probably crying, “and I was <em>wrong.</em> I don’t know how I could have been so wrong. I guess I was just blind.”</p><p>“Hey,” Toph hummed.</p><p>“Sorry, I—” Zuko tried to backtrack, but she just huffed. </p><p>“No, not that, dummy,” she scolded. “I know you meant like the metaphor. I meant ‘hey, you’re not a traitor.’ Actually, it sounds to me like you’re the most loyal person in the Fire Nation.”</p><p>“What?” Zuko sounded super confused. Sokka could relate.</p><p>“Look, we all know your father is the worst person alive,” Toph stated. “And if we want to talk about disrespect, it sounds to me like it’d be a lot less respectful to use a bunch of kid soldiers as bait than to say ‘hey, that’s a bad plan.’ Zuko,” and now her voice was back to sounding so uncharacteristically gentle, like she was picking her words carefully, “I don’t think your scar is a mark of dishonor. I think it’s a mark of bravery. You stood up for people who needed standing up for. And you did your best to stay true to yourself under a father who wanted to <em>kill</em> you.”</p><p>“She’s right,” Sokka agreed, surprising himself. “Everything you just told us—if that isn’t a story of honor won, I don’t know what is. You’re… you’re a good man, Zuko.”</p><p>Zuko let out a strangled sobbing sound.</p><p>“Uh, is it okay if we hug you now?” Sokka asked. “Because I kind of feel like this is a ‘hug’ moment.”</p><p>“...alright,” Zuko breathed, and then all three of them were a tangle of limbs and snotty emotions. They stayed that way, huffing and sweaty and comfortable, until they fell asleep.</p><p>None of them dreamt at all.</p><p>(In the morning, Katara stood over their snoring dogpile, hands on her hips and a perplexed frown on her face. </p><p>“Ah, let them sleep,” Aang told her. “I woke up a little in the middle of the night and it sounded like they were having a pretty intense conversation.”</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes, but her stance softened, just a little. “Well, alright,” she grumbled. “You still need to practice your waterbending, anyway. Come on, outside!”</p><p>Groaning, Aang followed her out. The others slept on.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks again to @lunarmultishine for submitting this prompt to me on tumblr: "thrashing, as if in flames." </p><p>Oh, also, this fic's cross-posted to my tumblr account; feel free to come follow me if you'd like! I'm @serialreblogger for those that are interested :)</p><p>In the meantime, toss a kudos and/or a comment my way! I'd love to hear what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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